ED grills TMC leader Anubrata Mondal’s daughter in Delhi in cattle smuggling case

Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Anubrata Mondal’s daughter, Sukanya Mondal, was interrogated for eight hours by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at the agency’s office in Delhi on Wednesday in connection with the cattle smuggling case, officials said.

This was the first time Sukanya Mondal faced ED after avoiding two summons in October.

She refused to talk to the media while entering the ED office around 10am and also while leaving after 6pm.

ED officials said Sukanya Mondal was interrogated alone during the first half of the day and was made to face questions in presence of her father’s former bodyguard, Sehgal Hossain, who was earlier taken into custody.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Anubrata Mondal on August 11. The president of the TMC’s Birbhum district unit is now remanded in the custody at the Asansol correctional home in West Burdwan district.

Sehgal Hossain was arrested by CBI on June 10 and named as a prime accused in the agency’s third charge sheet filed on August 8.

Anubrata Mondal was named in the CBI’s fourth charge sheet filed at the Asansol court on October 7.

CBI officials claim to have detected Anubrata Mondal’s suspected link with 168 land and property deeds executed in or after 2014. At least two dozen of these properties belong to Mondal, suspects the federal agency, while the remaining 144 registration papers bear the names of his relatives, aides and their kin. One of them is his daughter.

CBI suspects that profits from cattle smuggling were used to buy these properties. ED is probing the llegations of money laundering in the case.

Sukanya Mondol, 31, a primary school teacher appointed by the state government in 2011, when the TMC first came to power, is director of the Neer Developer Pvt Ltd and ANM Agrochem Foods Pvt Ltd, the CBI probe revealed.

The other director of these companies is Bidyut Baran Gayen, an employee of the Bolpur municipality.

The two companies have their offices at the same address where the Bholebam Rice Mill owned by Sukanya Mondal is located in Birbhum’s Bolpur town. According to the agreement papers seen by HT, the two companies are recorded as tenants of the rice mill against a monthly rent of ₹500 each.

CBI raided the mill on August 19 and subsequently traced documents which indicate that between 2018 and 2021 as many as 16 property deeds were recorded in the name ANM Agrochem Foods while three properties were purchased by Neer Developer.

TMC leaders refused to comment on Sukanya Mondal being interrogated by ED.

“She is not a party member. We don’t want to comment,” said TMC Lok Sabha member Saugata Roy.